


Just That Much Further From Human

by Chichirinoda



Category: Almost Human, RoboCop - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Police Procedural, Robot Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-24
Updated: 2014-04-02
Packaged: 2018-01-13 15:04:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 12,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1230886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chichirinoda/pseuds/Chichirinoda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As technology progressed beyond the government's ability to regulate, crime skyrocketed. Even RoboCop was helpless in the face of criminals carrying advanced weaponry, and he was shut down. Forgotten.</p>
<p>Nearly two decades later, Alex Murphy is reactivated in a foreign city, in a world where the police force has moved on from cyborgs to full humanoid robots. Will he find a place in this city? And how will this new police force view him - as a dangerous, uncontrollable robot, or a good cop with something to offer?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

When Dorian’s circuitry began to glow blue with the call, John’s mouth was full of noodles. He was currently choking on them, and Dorian had been watching with amusement, as his human partner tried to simultaneously come up with a comeback to Dorian’s wittiest line yet, and clear his mouth and nasal passages enough to deliver it.

It probably would have been worth the wait, but then the alert came over the line, and Dorian was distracted.

“We’ve got to go, John,” he said, and plucked the chopsticks out of John’s fingers, eliciting a squawk of protest. “Triple homicide’s been called in. There might be more of them in the building. It occurred only ten minutes ago, and we’re the closest unit. If we’re fast enough, we may catch the perpetrator.”

John managed to swallow, and wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. “I’ll get you for this,” he said, sliding off the stool. That probably wasn’t the comeback he’d planned, though it was sincere. Dorian smiled, and headed to the car.

The building was in the shade of the Wall. It looked like nothing more interesting than an abandoned office complex, windows broken where they weren’t boarded up, and a faded symbol like a broken triple octagon over the door, which had once been padlocked, but was now hanging open. The symbol tripped a few circuits, a few possible connections flickering to Dorian’s consciousness, and then dropping away again. No telling which of the possible meanings would prove to be relevant, if any of them would. For now, he had to focus.

“Neighbours heard gunshots and called it in. Normally, we might not even hear about something like this, but someone in the area claims to have seen a man in a metal suit shoot three individuals. That was interesting enough to overcome the residents’ natural reticence to involving the police,” Dorian said as he got out of the car, gun out and at the ready.

Three men indeed lay sprawled on the sidewalk outside the door. Dorian knelt by the first body and performed a facial recognition. “John,” he said, looking up. John was inspecting one of the others with a deep frown on his face, his gun trained at the gaping black doorway into the building.

John grunted and shot him a look, so Dorian knew he was listening. “John, this man is Harvey Golden, wanted for over a dozen charges of larceny, assault and at least one confirmed murder. He’s a member of an underground illegal weapons development syndicate called Ultraware.”

John rolled his eyes and shrugged. “What do you want to do then, arrest him? We need to figure out why he’s dead. What are you thinking, some kind of turf war?”

Dorian glanced at the body at his feet. “John.”

John looked down again, pursing his lips, preoccupied. “Ultraware wouldn’t be operating in a shithole like this. Who’d be buying their kind of weaponry in this neighbourhood? They manufacture high-end stuff for organized criminals and mercenaries, way out of the price range of anyone squatting in the shadow of the Wall.”

“John.”

“ _What?_ ”

The man on the ground next to John groaned, and John took a big step back, swinging his gun down to point at him. 

Dorian pulled out his handcuffs. “John, these men are still alive. They were stunned by a primitive stunning weapon, I believe. We should secure them before they wake up. They’re all wanted men.”

John cursed him roundly under his breath as they arrested the three men and shoved them into the back of the squad car.

Once they were securely locked in, Dorian met the eyes of his partner. “Now what do we do? The perpetrator is probably long gone by now.”

His partner nodded and looked back at the door. “We go in, and see what we can find. These guys won’t be able to answer any questions for hours. Besides, there could be more of them in there.”

Dorian glanced at the three men wedged into the back of their squad car. “We’ll need a bigger vehicle.”

They smiled at each other, then headed for the door, moving slowly and pausing outside to listen, guns out and cocked. Ready for anything.

As they moved into the building, nothing materialized. It was pretty dark, and Dorian took the lead, following the residual heat trail that marked the path of the three men as they entered the building. It was easy to follow - there was only a hallway stretching out ahead of them. It was clear from the overlay of infrared signatures that the men had walked boldly into the building. They had checked the doors on either side, but hadn’t gone into any of the rooms. They might not have known exactly where they were going, but they knew what they were looking for.

And then something had sent them running in the other direction. Something that left no heat signature of its own, but had clearly scared the crap out of three hardened, violent criminals.

Dorian quietly narrated this information to John as they moved. They checked each room as they passed, but all were empty of anything but ancient, brittle furniture and trash swept in by the wind through the broken windows. The movements of rats and roaches reached Dorian’s sensors, and dust was thick in the air, stirred by the passage of the three men and their unknown assailant. This building hadn’t been occupied for a long time.

“Weird,” John said suddenly, and Dorian glanced at him questioningly. John arched an eyebrow. “You’d think a building like this would be prime for squatters. It’s intact, it’s warm, it’s uninhabited. Why are these guys the first ones to come in here in a decade?”

“Two decades would be closer,” Dorian murmured, and rewound his video feed, reviewing what he had seen so far for a clue. “I detect three security sensors that were deactivated prior to our entry,” he said. “One was on the door itself. We’ve passed two more. The security measures are likely the reason why the building hasn’t been penetrated by anyone. It would have stunned or otherwise discouraged anyone who tried.”

“Why would anyone put that much security on an abandoned empty building?” John asked.

“They wouldn’t.”

They had reached a heavy steel door, which had been dented and blown outwards by what looked like multiple hits. Beyond, an enormous room stretched away, brightly lit by overhead halogen bulbs. The white, clean room was overwhelming to Dorian’s sensors after the dim, dingy hallway, and he saw John squinting and blinking against the glare as he looked past Dorian into the room. 

Racks lined the walls, filled with objects that Dorian cataloged almost unconsciously. They were all weaponry and scientific equipment, from what he could see at a glance. In the centre of the room was a table, like a doctor’s examination table, with some kind of unknown hookup at one end, all wires and tubes. It was currently in the vertical position, and empty. 

“What the hell is this?” John growled, lowering his gun slowly. It seemed obvious that there was nothing dangerous in the room. At least, nothing alive and dangerous. “A secret lab?”

“Looks like.” Dorian took a step through the door, scanning for security threats. 

“So the guys we’ve got in the car came here, and they pretty much knew what they were looking for,” John said, following Dorian and moving cautiously towards the table in the middle of the room. “They got here, deactivating all the security on their way, and then were attacked. They tried to lock whatever it was inside, but whatever it was broke down the door. They ran like hell, then got tased as they got outside.”

“That fits the available facts.”

“So whoever attacked them had been locked inside this room for who knows how long. And it didn’t leave a heat signature.”

Dorian heard a sound. A mechanical whirr, followed by a heavy thud. And again. And again. Regular, like footfalls. The footfalls of something very heavy and determined.

“It was a robot,” he said, and swung around, moving to the doorway with gun levelled.

At the far end of the hall, moving towards them, was a figure. A line of red light glowed from the silver faceplate that covered a human-looking face. But it was clearly not human. Dorian’s sensors detected only a heavily armoured mechanical body, though there were some anomalous readings. 

Most importantly right at the moment, it carried a huge gun in its hand.

“Holy shit,” John said, and took aim.

“I think we found our perpetrator,” said Dorian, raising his own gun and levelling it at the machine. He only hoped that his bullets could penetrate its armour.


	2. Chapter 2

The robot came on down the hall with the mechanical inexorability of an oncoming tank. It was about a million feet tall, and nearly as wide, covered in armour from head to toe. It was a weird machine, with some synthetic human parts that didn't fit. For example, who thought it made sense to make its right hand synthetic instead of metal? The left was clearly articulated armour, but the right, which held the gun trained at their heads, looked like skin. 

Each step it took had its own physical and auditory presence, a whir and _thunk_ that echoed off the walls.

John slapped his comm badge with his free hand. “Dispatch, where is our backup? We need backup _right now_ ,” he snapped, hearing the high note of fear in his own voice. This thing was as scary as the XRN, and _looked_ the part.

Whir, _thunk_.

“Backup is already on its way, Kennex,” said the dispatcher’s calm voice in his ear. “ETA, five minutes.”

“Not soon enough,” John growled, and glanced at Dorian. His partner was still, completely unmoving, his circuitry swirling in soft blue as he accessed data.

“Drop your weapons,” said the robot. Whir, _thunk_. “You have twenty seconds to comply.”

“Jesus,” John whispered, and grabbed for his badge. The robot’s attention swung fully onto him at the movement, and the gun moved fractionally, aiming more directly at John’s head, rather than covering both of them. “You drop your weapon,” John shouted at it.

Whir, _thunk_.

“You are under arrest,” said the robot, incredibly. “Put down your weapons, and put your hands on your head. You have ten seconds to comply.”

“John,” said Dorian suddenly. “I think we might want to just do what he says.”

“Are you kidding me?” John exclaimed. He thrust his own badge at the robot, which was less than twenty feet away now, still coming on like a very slow freight train. “ _You’re_ under arrest, shithead. _Put_ down your weapon and get on your knees, right now!”

The robot stopped, and its head swung down slightly, the red glowing line that seemed to serve for its eyes pulsing as it seemed to regard John Kennex and his badge.

_I am so going to die,_ John thought. Badges never worked with rogue robots.

There was a standoff that seemed to last an eternity, but was probably only a second or two. John’s heart thundered in his ears, and he was glad for Dorian’s presence, standing just in front of him and at his side, but when the robot fired, that huge gun it carried was going to go through both of them like they were made of tissue paper. Dorian was trying to protect him, and that was cute, but John was sure it wouldn’t matter when push came to shove.

But then, the gun lowered to the robot’s side. Panels opened in its thigh plating and the gun disappeared into its leg. Then it raised its hands, and sank to its knees.

_Okay, apparently I’m…not going to die._

“Right then,” John said, keeping his gun trained on the robot. “That’s better.”

Dorian’s blue eyes slid to him, thoughtful, then returned to the robot. “Are you Detective Alex Murphy of the Detroit Police?”

John started. “ _What?_ ”

The robot looked up at Dorian, lips slightly parted as if it were surprised. “That is correct.”

“John, please. Lower your gun.” Dorian holstered his own and walked towards ‘Murphy’, hands spread in a non-threatening manner. “This man is a police officer.”

John was not about to lower his gun just yet, except that now his partner was getting in the damn way. If the robot flipped out and tried to rip Dorian to little bits, John wouldn’t have a clear shot. Not that his bullets would probably penetrate this thing’s armour anyway. He let his pistol drop fractionally. “Would someone please tell me what the hell is going on here?”

“I can take a guess at the first part,” Dorian said. “In the early days of the technological crime wave, OmniCorp declared bankruptcy. At the same time, you disappeared. I’m guessing you were deactivated, and brought here for some reason.”

“That’s what it seems like,” said Murphy.

“Then those men out there came here, and woke you up,” continued Dorian. “You shot them, and we were called in.”

Murphy lowered his head slightly, then raised it. “They were carrying weapons and it was clear from what they were talking about when I came online that they were weapons dealers. I questioned them, and they threatened me. I took them down so that they could be dealt with by the authorities.”

“This thing is really a cop?” John blurted out, staring at Murphy in incomprehension. He’d never heard of anything like this. They had armoured battle droids on the police force in Detroit? He thought they used MX units like everyone else.

Dorian swung his head around and glared at him. “John, you need to try to be more sensitive. Detective Murphy isn’t a ‘thing’. He’s a human being.”

“More accurately, I was a human being,” Murphy said. His helmet shifted, the faceplate retracting, and John looked into a pair of completely human eyes. Human eyes with actual emotion in them. “I’m what they call a cybernetic organism.”

_Holy shit that is so illegal,_ John thought, his eyes widening. He finally lowered his gun.

“Er,” said Murphy. “I don’t seem to have the right network protocols to access the net. How long was I out?”

“It’s 2048,” John said. Murphy’s brows pinched. Didn’t look like that was the answer he was hoping for.

The sound of approaching sirens reached John’s ears. Oh great, the backup cavalry was finally here. Whoop de doo. If Murphy had actually been dangerous - which it seemed right now he wasn’t - John’s brains would have already dribbled out of the bullet hole in his head long before they got here.

“John, I don’t know how our esteemed colleagues are going to react to Detective Murphy,” Dorian said warningly. “Technically his existence is against the law. And he needs to be brought up to speed.”

“Yeah, I have a funny feeling we don’t want them to come in here,” John said, holstering his gun. “I’ll go run interference. Get the rest of the story before I get back and then we’ll figure out what to do with him.” 

John approached the two robots - it was hard not to think of Murphy as one, even now. He tried to think of him as a guy wearing a suit, but it was hard. There was something of the robot in his stillness, in the way his gaze looked simultaneously far away and here. John saw that look often in Dorian’s eyes - he was accessing data. Murphy had emotion, like Dorian, but like Dorian he was a computer, too. 

Murphy’s eyes followed John as he moved closer, then Murphy got to his feet. The guy _towered_. It was crazy. He had to be nearly seven feet tall of pure armoured badass. 

John edged past him and forced himself not to look back as he walked out of the building to deal with the police officers rushing up the sidewalk towards them.

* * *

Alex Murphy watched the twitchy police officer go, then turned his attention back to the other one. The one his sensors were telling him was an artificial being, but who sure looked and _acted_ as human as anyone. Except for the way little trails of blue kept chasing themselves up and down his cheek. What was up with that, anyway?

“I don’t think that guy likes me very much,” he said. 

“John doesn’t like anyone very much,” the police officer (?) assured him. He smiled slightly. “I’m DRN-0167, though you can call me Dorian. My partner is John Kennex.”

Alex licked his lips, studying Dorian. “What are you?” He hoped that wasn’t too rude a question. He just couldn’t think of a better phrasing right at the moment. Half of his brain was still trying to come to grips with what he’d seen while perched on the roof outside, not to mention what he’d experienced inside this building since waking up.

“I’m a robot, a fully synthetic organism, compared to your partly organic structure,” Dorian said. “I’m also a police officer. Pairing a human officer with a ‘synthetic’ one is standard practice nowadays.”

“Neat,” Alex heard himself say. He guessed it was pretty neat. Maybe he’d paved the way for this, but it bothered him what Dorian had said before Kennex left, that Alex’s existence was illegal. He eyed Dorian. “I’m in trouble, aren’t I?”

Dorian considered that. “Yes, I think you might be. But hopefully we can help you.” He gave Alex a sympathetic look. “I’ve downloaded your dossier, and it included some specs - what wasn’t fully proprietary tech, anyway. You’ll need some upgrades before you’ll be able to access the net, but I know someone who can probably do that for you, and once you’re properly connected, I’m sure you’ll feel better.”

“Less confused, anyway.” It was pretty amazing how life-like Dorian was. You could almost believe that that expression had real emotion behind it. But Alex had met robots, had even been reduced to one for a while when they suppressed his emotions. He knew how they thought, and he knew there was no way Dorian could really feel anything. 

Alex looked away, frowning. He had a million questions - where was Clara? How was David? How had Dr. Norton let this happen? Where was he exactly and why was there a huge wall dividing this part of the city from another part? Why was he illegal? But he hesitated to ask them of this hunk of metal with the human face. Dorian seemed nice enough, but he was a robot. He would answer to someone, belonged to someone, and Alex had no clue who that someone was. 

He remembered when things had started to go really bad in Detroit. He had been working himself almost to death, but the crime rates continued to climb. The criminals had things, new technologies that gave them an edge. The media had begun to turn on him, and a new amendment to the Dreyfus Act was being floated in Congress again. Everyone started talking about upgrades, making him better, and he’d started to worry that ‘upgrade’ meant wiping his humanity again. Doctor Norton assured him he’d never let that happen, but the well-meaning doctor had let him down before.

And then, he’d woken up here. They hadn’t even given him a chance to fight back this time, and he had no idea why or whose decision it had been.

Dorian was right - when he had his wifi upgrade, he could search for the answers himself.

The door opened abruptly, and Alex felt his body react. It was an effort not to let his visor slide down reflexively - he was more keyed up than he’d thought. Without his net connection, he was blind and deaf, and virtually helpless in the hands of strangers. 

A microsecond later, he identified John Kennex, and relaxed fractionally. The human gestured to them, jerking his head. “They’re gone, and they’ve taken the perps off to the cube. Time to get outta here. We’ll take him to Rudy and see what sense he can make of all this.”

Dorian took the lead, and Alex followed, conscious that he was leaving behind the lab that might be necessary to keep him alive. But he didn’t seem to have much choice.


	3. Chapter 3

“Oh my sweet god!” 

Dorian and John had brought Alex to a sort of laboratory that looked like some nerd’s parent’s basement, merged with their most dearly-loved technological wet dream. And now a skinny rat-faced Brit was stroking Alex’s chest plate and moaning.

“Oh my dear sweet god. You are _beautiful_.”

Alex’s face plate snapped down and he froze, hands slightly spread, not sure what to do. John and Dorian both watched without making any move to intervene, their lips twitching madly. Thanks, guys.

“Could you stop doing that, please?” Alex said cautiously. The guy was so thin Alex was nervous that if he touched him, he might break him in half. Especially since he didn’t want to touch him so much as throw him through the nearest wall. 

The man blinked and then stepped back, giving the chest plate a nervous swipe with his slender fingertips, as if trying to rub off the lingering residue of his touch. “Oh right, right. Sorry. It’s just… _wow_. The retro styling. And you are a serious _combat_ model. You look like that old cyborg from Detroit. I bet your designer had a real hardon for those old OmniCorp designs, right?”

John snorted. “Yeah, about that.”

“Rudy Lom, meet Detective Alex Murphy, of Detroit,” said Dorian gently.

Rudy’s eyes grew, if possible, even wider. “No way.”

Alex swallowed his discomfort with an effort, lifted his visor again, and held out his organic hand. “Pleased to meet you. I’m that old cyborg from Detroit.”

Rudy grasped it, but not like a handshake. He held Alex’ hand like a schoolgirl with his first crush. Or like he had just picked up the holy grail and wasn’t sure if it was going to grant him godlike power or if something was going to go ‘snap’ and cut his head off. “ _No. Way_ ,” he breathed. 

“Way.”

Alex gently, but firmly, detached Rudy’s hand and Rudy hugged himself, gazing at him with luminous eyes. “Yeah, well. It’s a real honour to meet you, sir. Where’ve you been all my life— I mean, uh, you’ve been out of the public eye for quite a while. What brings you to my humble abode?”

Dorian finally rescued him, subtly moving between Alex and his biggest fan, and attracting Rudy’s attention. “Rudy, Detective Murphy needs some upgrades, so he can access the new network protocols and update his files. We were hoping you could help him out.”

This was obviously a request beyond Rudy’s wildest dreams. “Oh sure! Yeah, I’d be glad to help.” He stumbled over to a table, which was covered with some kind of half-finished project, and cleared it off. Robot parts and tools rained down, bits and bobs rolling into corners. And then Rudy gestured to the table like the beautiful assistant on an old game show. “Ta da! Hop up, please.”

Alex glanced at John, and the human seemed to read his concern in his eyes. John shrugged and made a sort of encouraging gesture. “He’s actually really good at what he does.”

“I let him work on me,” Dorian reassured him. “I’ve rarely regretted it.”

“Guys…” Rudy turned mournful, betrayed eyes on Dorian. “You’re embarrassing me in front of my guest.”

Trust came hard, after all this time. What it had taken to let Doctor Norton back in, you didn’t want to know. Most of it was because Norton controlled the lab with the nutrients and chemicals needed to maintain his organic parts, and knew how to repair his mechanical body. He had let Norton back into his life because he had _no choice_ , not just because he did believe, when it was all said and done, that Doctor Norton was a basically good human being. That alone wouldn’t have been enough.

But even as that thought passed through Alex’s head and he considered the merits of getting on that table versus walking right out of here, he realized that this situation was no different. He had no choice. Maybe if he walked out, he could find someone else willing to help him, but he would know no more about them then he knew about these men. And he couldn’t do this alone. He was a cop, not an engineer or a programmer. He knew nothing about his own code. Fixing himself would be worse than performing brain surgery on himself with a mirror.

Actually, fixing himself would probably _involve_ performing brain surgery on himself with a mirror.

He had no other options. So he inclined his head and walked over to the table, and laid down on it.

Rudy talked constantly as he worked. To Alex’s surprise, it was actually sort of reassuring to listen to the unending stream of words, as Rudy bustled around and poked and prodded and narrated everything he did. Occasionally, he gushed praise over Alex’s robotic parts. 

When he removed Alex’s chest plate to check on something, John looked away with a ‘holy Jesus’. Alex could relate - he’d seen it.

Dorian assisted, his presence a reassuring silence in stark contrast to Rudy’s squirrel-like chatter. He handed Rudy tools, checked readings, and helped Rudy to examine him from head to toe.

“Okay…diagnostics are complete, and I’ve upgraded your modem,” Rudy said finally, slotting something into place at the back of Alex’s neck with an audible click. “Uploading passwords, and switching it on — now.”

Alex didn’t remember much for a while after that.

* * *

When the modem was switched on, Dorian watched as Alex’s face went from alert and nervous to utterly blank, his eyelids half-closing as his eyes rolled upwards in their sockets. He examined his data pad, panning it over Alex’ prone body and watching the readings closely. Rudy stood back, watching his face and chewing on his right thumbnail.

“Is he okay?” John asked, somehow hovering like a nervous motherhen while simultaneously standing as far away from Alex as he could get while still being in the same room. 

Dorian suspected that the sight of Alex’s internal organs had disturbed his human partner so deeply, mostly as a reaction to his own status as a partially synthetic human, and the trauma associated with his accident. Dorian was rather looking forward to letting John know exactly how Alex had wound up having most of his body removed and replaced with mechanical analogues. Things could always be worse.

“I believe his human brain is having a hard time processing the amount of data that’s coming across the stream,” Dorian said. Rudy had stopped mutilating himself and was tinkering madly. 

“Damn, damn,” Rudy said, sliding open Alex’s helmet and eyeing the tiny implants on the surface of Alex’s brain. John made a horrified noise at the sight. “I hope he’s not about to blow a circuit. I’m not a brain surgeon, okay? We need a brain surgeon!”

“No, we don’t,” Dorian said, sorting through files as quickly as he had ever done. “We need to dial back the download rate. He can process the data. He just needs a little more time than modern processors.”

Rudy stared at him for a moment, then grabbed up a multitool and stuck it into the hole where he’d inserted Alex’s new modem. “Right, right, just lower the bandwidth, give his brain more time to catch up. Once he’s got the files updated and he’s balanced, we can remove the limitations again.”

The engineer grabbed his computer and began typing madly, chewing frantically on his lower lip. 

Seconds drew out. John paced the far end of the room, throwing glances at them every so often and rubbing his knee from time to time. “If you guys blow his brains out, I am _not_ cleaning up the mess.”

“I think I’ve got it,” Rudy said. Slowly, Alex’s breathing evened out, and his face relaxed. His lids closed fully, and Dorian could see his eyes moving from side to side, up and down. He looked asleep, but from the spiking brainwave activity on Dorian’s monitors, he knew he wasn’t. He was processing. He was at the limit of what he could take in, but he was managing, now.

Rudy blew out a breath and threw himself into a chair. “He’ll probably be a while with that. Maybe later I can figure out how to upgrade his processors without actually going to medical school first,” he said, rubbing his cheek and then looking from Dorian to John. “So he’ll be staying here with us, yeah? I mean, it’s obvious he’s not got a place to go.”

“Well, I know _I’m_ not putting him up,” John grumped.

Dorian eyed his partner, but decided against renewing his earlier plea to move in with him. John needed his space, and Dorian was getting used to living with Rudy. Besides, with Alex here, it might even be bearable.

“What _are_ we going to do, John?” Dorian asked quietly. “Should we tell Captain Maldonado about him?”

“Hell no,” John said, much to Dorian’s relief. “Not yet, anyway. We tell her, and then she gets the brass involved, and next thing you know he’s shut down. We need to at least give him a chance to figure himself out, find out what those guys wanted with him, and he can decide what he wants to do.” John looked from Dorian to Rudy, and scowled. Probably because Dorian was smiling with appreciation for his partner’s gentle heart, covered up as it often was by his acerbic nature. “It’s the least we can do for the poor bastard. I mean, look at him.”

“He’s been through a lot,” Rudy said unhappily. “I wonder what’s happened to his wife and kid. He had a wife and kid, you know.”

“Clara Murphy was killed in a subway accident during the gas riots of ‘35,” Dorian said, accessing the files he’d already downloaded on Alex’s life. “David Murphy was last seen in Hong Kong. He has two children and is a well-known synthetic rights activist, but he’s retired from the public eye in recent years.”

“My son’s in China,” Alex’s voice rasped, his eyelids fluttering open. He sat up slowly, and Rudy leaped into action, grabbing his arm as if to help him, though it was a little like helping a forklift raise a pallet onto a shelf. Maybe it helped a bit, but you couldn’t really tell. Alex shook his head. “I’m a _grandfather_?”

Rudy fluttered his hands helplessly. “Congratulations?”


	4. Chapter 4

No sooner had Alex’s brain activity calmed somewhat, but John’s phone started buzzing, and he ducked outside to take the call. While still helping Rudy with a few diagnostics, Dorian bumped up the sensitivity of his auditory receiver - a little trick he was pretty sure John didn’t know he could perform - and listened in. Maldonado wanted to know where “the heck” they were. The men Alex Murphy had tased were waking up and it was John’s arrest. They needed to be questioned, and their Captain needed them at the station to do that.

John walked back in, phone still in hand. “I’ve got to get back. Dorian, do you still need to stay here and tinker, or can Rudy handle it on his own? Those guys are waking up and we need to take care of their interrogation before Paul gets a chance at them and finds out about Tin Man over there.”

That was a concern. Given Detective Paul’s attitude about Kennex, it wouldn’t surprise Dorian if Paul would take pleasure in exposing Alex, just to spite them.

Dorian shot Rudy a questioning glance, and Rudy waved at him with his multitool. “Nah, I got this. He’s stable, brain-wise. I’m just going to go ahead and do a few routine upgrades to his systems - nothing that’ll cause any melt-downs. You guys go and take care of things at the station. I’ll give you a ring when he wakes up.”

“Very well,” Dorian said, and handed back the diagnostic pad. “I’ll see you tonight.”

Rudy nodded and bent over Alex, humming contentedly to himself as he resumed his work. Dorian followed John out to the car.

Dorian observed John’s driving for a few minutes. As he’d expected, John was distracted and on-edge, weaving in and out of traffic more recklessly than usual. Occasionally, he rubbed his knee, his brow furrowed deeply and a forbidding expression on his face.

Likely, John wanted him to be in ‘synthetic off’ mode. Naturally, Dorian ignored this possibility.

“It bothers you, doesn’t it?”

John scowled at him so fiercely that Dorian knew his next words would be a lie. “Nothing’s bothering me. Why would something be bothering me?”

Dorian smiled serenely. It was pleasing, having a partner he clicked with so well. Someone he knew, deep down, and had such a connection with that he could predict his moods and emotions from the smallest tells. It made them an effective team.

“It’s bothering you, because you feel a kinship with Alex Murphy. And that’s natural. You two are a lot alike, John.”

“He’s a tin can from the dark ages,” John snapped, and changed lanes without signalling, turning the force of his glare on an innocent minivan full of children and a white-haired lady in the driver’s seat. “What could I possibly have in common with him?”

“Well, for one,” Dorian said. “You’re both police officers who lost limbs in the line of duty. In explosions, actually. The coincidence is quite startling.”

John grimaced. “He didn’t lose a limb. He lost an entire fucking body.”

“Indeed. You’re very lucky that you only lost your leg.”

Now, John spent a bit of time in ‘human off’ position. His body was a vibrating mass of tension, and Dorian sensed that he had touched more than one nerve. But that was pretty much his intention by this line of conversation, anyway. He was actually surprised that John hadn’t told him to shut up, yet.

He was still evaluating what to say next to try to diffuse his partner’s discomfort - that was, after all, the whole point of needling him, to keep him from retreating into dark thoughts and brooding, as he was often inclined to do - when John spoke up again.

“They took away everything that makes him human, made him into a thing. He’s a product, with a serial number. Like you.”

Dorian froze. The words hurt, and that pain was unexpected enough that he didn’t know how to respond right away. It had been quite a while since John had managed to say something that _hurt_. The regular sarcasm rolled off of his back, because he knew John respected and liked him. Apparently, he had left his emotions unguarded.

“Am I a product, John?” he asked, almost without meaning to.

John glanced at him guiltily. “Of course you are,” he said. “You have a synthetic soul, but you were made in a factory, out of parts. Someone paid for you to be created, and you don’t get to decide. If the force decided to destroy you, or box you up for fifteen years, or sell you to someone else, you wouldn’t have a choice.”

“That’s true,” Dorian said in a measured tone. He had decided that John wasn’t trying to hurt him. The words continued to sting anyway.

John’s eyes narrowed. “Doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be a goddamn shitty thing to do, and I’d turn in my badge before I’d let it happen.”

That helped. Dorian found himself studying John’s coffee mug, sitting between them in the console. “I appreciate that, John.”

“But the point is,” John went on, more forcefully. “The same thing goes for Alex Murphy. But he was _born_ human. He has a fucking wife and kid, for Christ’s sake. He is a cop, just like me, who nearly died doing what cops do. And because of that, he’s no more in control of his destiny than the damn MXs, or even you. He’s _owned_ by a corporation, and if the wrong people know about him, he’ll be slagged for one goddamn stupid reason or another, and there’s dick-all he’d be able to do about it.”

Having finished this tirade, John turned his eyes on the road and put his foot down, speeding past a large truck as he accelerated. His fingers white-knuckled on the steering wheel.

Dorian understood, and he didn’t feel any pain, now. “Are you worried about him?”

“Damn straight.”

“Then we’d better do what we can to protect him.”

John shot him a pleased smirk, and Dorian sat back, satisfied. They were almost at the station.

* * *

Maldonado accosted them the moment they walked in. She came out of her office and stormed up to them, foiling John’s hopes of flying under the radar. Her face was set and suspicious, eyes searching his face even as she approached.

“What the heck were you doing for the past two hours, Kennex? It’s not like you not to bring your arrests to the cubes yourself. Did you find something?” 

John pursed his lips, searching for an answer that would be both believable and would keep his ass - and Alex’s metal analogue - out of the fire. He saw Dorian looking around with a sort of studied casualness that John thought looked _too_ casual. 

Most everyone was ignoring them, but that didn’t mean they weren’t listening as hard as they could. He had to keep this cool. “I was just taking care of some stuff, it’s nothing,” John said. Dorian’s face was completely bland, mimicking a nearby MX. “Everything’ll be in my report, Captain.”

Maldonado narrowed her eyes searchingly. John struggled to meet her eyes and failed miserably. He hated lying to her when she’d gone to bat for him so many times. Damnit. How was he going to get out of this without telling her?

“Captain, I believe we should get on with our interrogations,” Dorian said helpfully. 

To John's relief, that narrow look was now turned on Dorian. She obviously knew they were up to something, and was trying to decide whether or not she could trust them. “Fine,” she said finally. “Get on with the interrogations.”

Silently, she waggled a finger under John’s nose before turning and heading back into her office, and he got the signal, loud and clear. She was willing to give them latitude, but she was far from done with them.

John let out a breath. “Shit,” he muttered.

“We’ll figure out what to do,” Dorian said. “At the right time, we’ll tell her.”

“Right.” _Whenever the right time will be. Maybe when they repeal the Dreyfus Act. As if **that’s** going to happen in my lifetime._

All three of the guys they had arrested were pretty shell-shocked. It was obvious even before John had softened them up that none of them had remotely expected to find what they found in that room.

Three hours and four bruised knuckles later, they knew the following:

One, they worked for a cartel, who developed and sold weapons and illegal technologies on the black market. An upscale sort of crime syndicate, that didn’t just buy and sell, but did their own R&D. John hated those.

Two, this particular trio were grunts. They’d been sent on a fetch and carry mission, and hadn’t really known what they were in for. All they knew was that there was supposed to be a treasure trove of technology in that building, and their bosses had wanted it. They’d been told how to deactivate the security, and to bring back whatever they found.

Three, they were reluctant to give up the name and location of their employer. Reluctant, but they did it anyway. Eventually.

John rolled over what he’d learned as he drove Dorian back to Rudy’s for the night. His hand throbbed. It felt good, like productivity and accomplishment. That probably wasn’t a good sign for his own mental stability. He didn't care.

“It seems Alex Murphy isn’t in too much danger, yet,” Dorian murmured.

“How do you figure?” John asked, scowling. He came to a stop outside the building, but Dorian didn’t get out immediately.

“The individuals we arrested don’t know what they saw. They think he’s a robot.”

“Yeah, an armed robot who’s gone AWOL,” John pointed out. “Every MX in the city will have the description by tonight. That means if Alex goes anywhere, he’ll probably be spotted. They might not know what he really is, but they’ll bring him down anyway.”

Dorian was silent for a few moments, lips pursed unhappily. “I’ll make sure he understands that,” he said, looking at John. “If Rudy’s been successful, he’ll have access to the CCTV, and might be able to evade the MXs. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

It was the best they could do for now. Tomorrow they’d check out the supposed headquarters and see what they could find. So far, no particular crime had apparently been committed - the guys they’d arrested were wanted men, but the police assumed they had been victims of an out-of-control droid. John and Dorian would be investigating the danger to Alex without any official backing from the force, because no one on the force knew that it was all that important. Sure, they wanted the cartel, but they weren’t about to commit major resources on this kind of tip.

But that was fun to look forward to for tomorrow. He’d worry about it then.

John nodded. “Yeah, good night.”

Dorian smiled, and got out of the car. “Good night, John.”

John watched him head inside, then put the car into gear. A few hours of thinking time was just what he needed. It was late, and he’d had his fill of robots and robot-like people, and people-like robots, for one day.


	5. Chapter 5

Alex woke to a whole different world. His brain _buzzed_ with information. It effervesced. 

When Norton first hooked him into the police files, he would have probably thought the information overload was overwhelming. At least, he’d have thought it, if he’d been capable of thinking much of anything at the time. He didn’t have any feelings about it, either way, though.

But this time, he had feelings. Every stray thought brought a cascade of CCTV feeds and scrolling data. It had taken him hours to sort it through, get used to the stream, and get to the point where he could hold an actual coherent conversation again.

By that point, Rudy was done with the _other_ upgrades. He had a new, modernized weapon, was oiled from head to toe, and just felt _better_. Faster. Stronger. Rudy had replaced several of his joints and some of his plating and done a full upgrade on his electrical system. He had other plans, too. Or so Alex had gleaned from the unending stream of commentary once he had become conscious enough to follow it.

Yet, Rudy had done nothing about all the noise Alex made when he moved. He still hummed and clunked around. Rudy watched him take a walk around the lab with a rapt expression, and Alex called him on it cynically.

“You could have gotten rid of the sounds, couldn’t you.” 

“It just wouldn’t be the same,” Rudy explained cheerfully. “I didn’t want to change too much.”

Alex shrugged mentally and accepted it. The truth was, he agreed. 

Dorian came back and reported what they had learned - not a heck of a lot - and Rudy had eventually gone to bed. He apparently slept in the lab, in a nest of blankets on a cheap fold-out cot in the corner, surrounded by a curtain. Dorian headed off to stand in some kind of charging station.

With no other idea of what to do with himself, Alex parked himself on the surgery table. The lights went down, until the room was completely black except for a bit of light filtering in from the street and a myriad of multi-coloured stars cast by various electronic devices.

Alex was used to sleeping at night, recharging his mental and physical batteries, but this table didn’t have that capability. So he retreated into his data stream, and, against his own better judgement, he found himself searching for his wife and son.

He watched the footage of the accident which had claimed Clara’s life, and went over the videos of some of David’s speeches. He saw David’s wife, a slender, sweet-faced lady from Hong Kong, and their adorable black-eyed children.

He didn’t notice that he was crying until Dorian came out of the darkness and spoke softly. “Alex? Are you all right?”

Alex gritted his teeth and raised his organic hand to wipe away the tears trickling down his cheeks. “I’m…” _fine_. But he wasn’t fine.

Dorian touched his shoulder, awkwardly, like he wasn’t used to comforting anyone. “What were you accessing?” 

“Things about my wife and son. I just wanted to… I don’t know. See for myself.” Alex paused. “How did you know that’s what I was doing?” he asked. 

“I just know,” Dorian said with a shrug. “You aren’t like a robot - a robot that’s not a DRN, I mean. You have a look when you’re reading something, instead of just staring blankly.”

Alex turned his head to look at Dorian. There was kindness in his startlingly blue eyes. Genuine-looking enough that Alex could believe it was really there.

“You’re not like other robots?” he asked.

Dorian smiled and shook his head. “Not exactly like. My line was programmed to have emotions. They call it a ‘synthetic soul’.”

Alex’s eyes widened in surprise. “You really _feel_ things?”

“I really do.”

His hand found Dorian’s and they gripped each other. It felt better than…the shoulder thing. He could feel that hand - phantom limb syndrome, his shiny metal ass, this was more than that. But flesh to…whatever Dorian had, still felt more real.

“There was a time when I couldn’t feel anything,” Alex whispered, after a while. “They did something to my brain, repressed my emotions. It was horrible - not at the time, but later. But now…”

“You wish it could be that way again?” Dorian asked. There was no judgement in his voice, nothing Alex could actually hear. All the judgement was in Alex’s own mind. Self-directed.

He shrugged. Servos up, servos down. Dorian’s hand tightened on his own. “No. Not really. But it would be easier.”

Dorian’s smile twisted. “You think if the computer were totally in control, you wouldn’t have to be responsible for your actions. That would be easier.”

Was that what he was thinking? Alex looked down at their entwined hands. “I’d still be responsible, just not in control. I don’t want that.” He drew in a breath, his lungs expanding to capacity against their silicone cage. “I _want_ what I always have wanted. A life with my family. To do good police work. To serve and protect.”

Dorian was silent. He shifted to sit on the table, next to Alex, and rubbed his thumb with his own. 

“I’ve lost all of that, haven’t I?” Alex whispered.

Dorian just held his hand, and said nothing.


	6. Chapter 6

Alex had survived his first sleepless night, but as the first light of dawn began to warm the small covered windows and Dorian came out of his charging station, and Rudy began to putter around, he felt…weird. Dizzy. 

“Doc? I think there’s something wrong,” he said, and Rudy nearly spilled his coffee all over himself with the haste with which he reacted to come and find out what.

The remainder of Rudy’s coffee cooled on the table next to them as Rudy ran even more diagnostics, his brow furrowed deeply as he peered at the readouts, while Alex sat long-sufferingly on the table and tried to tell himself that he was just imagining it. Still, since he had woken up with his new body after the explosion, he couldn’t remember ever feeling light-headed before now.

John Kennex arrived to pick Dorian up, but then the two of them stayed, watching quietly for Rudy’s diagnosis. It might have been Alex’s imagination, but John seemed less forbidding than the day before. Instead of skulking in a corner like he wanted to just melt through the wall and disappear, he stood next to Dorian at a polite distance, with his permanent scowl pasted on over a curious and almost worried expression.

Dorian just looked concerned. Looking at him, Alex felt his hand tingle, and kept wondering what the robot thought of what had happened the night before. 

Rudy finally stepped back, picked up his coffee and took a sip. He grimaced and put it down. “Okay, we’ve got a hell of a problem.”

“What problem, Rudy?” John snapped, brows lowering even more deeply. 

Rudy looked up at Alex. “Alex, what kind of maintenance did you normally have? What did they do, yanno, for your organic components?”

Alex grimaced. Of course, he should have thought of this sooner. “There’s this table,” he said. “It hooks into me, and they would feed nutrients into me at night before I went to sleep. It was just part of my night routine… I guess I never really thought about it.”

“I believe the table was in the room where you were found,” Dorian said.

“Well, we’d better get it,” Rudy said, looking from face to face. “If a human being skips a few meals, they start burning off their fat stores, right?”

John snorted. “Not an ounce of fat on Murphy’s body.”

“ _Exactly_ ,” Rudy agreed earnestly. “I doubt you can last long without feeding your brain and uh, other organs. And you don’t have a stomach anymore, my good friend.”

Alex stood up. He still felt woozy, but he trusted his mechanical body, and he flicked his helmet down. “Let’s go, then.”

Rudy scrambled away, grabbing a bag and throwing tools into it. “I’d better come along! The equipment could be really delicate. You can’t just rip it out of the floor.”

Dorian and John exchanged glances. Actually, more than a glance. 

It was like a silent battle of wills, which John ultimately seemed to lose. He sighed and rolled his eyes. “All right fine, I’ll drive. I’ll let the station know we’ll be taking a side-trip.”

“Given your usual lack of punctuality, it won’t seem the least bit unusual,” Dorian said blandly, his blue eyes dancing with mischief.

* * *

Alex couldn’t believe he was actually looking forward to hooking himself into his table again. It had always been a necessary evil. It took him away from his family at night, reminded him of his nature. But it wasn’t as though he’d have had a normal life without it. So he’d always endured it without thinking too much about it.

But right now, as they pulled up to the dilapidated building, ringed with holographic police tape, he couldn’t wait to get in there. His mind felt sluggish, and he didn’t think it was only because of his high-speed wifi connection. He could see four crimes in progress out of the corner of his eye, but he was having trouble finding the focus to understand what was happening with the crimes while at the same time listening to Rudy’s attempts to engage him in conversation. 

When John threw the police car into park, Alex disengaged Rudy’s hand from his arm, opened the door and stepped out. Rudy pulled his bag of tools out of the trunk and all four of them headed for the door. Alex took the lead, John at his shoulder with his hand on his belt, and Dorian beside him. Rudy brought up the rear, bent under his dufflebag.

They were five feet from the door when Alex’s visor went down. He stopped dead and put out a hand, blocking John from taking another step closer. “I’m detecting security measures active inside the building.”

John shot him a disbelieving look. “Active? No way, they were all deactivated before.”

“I see it, too,” Dorian spoke up. “Well done, Alex. I think your sensors are more sensitive than mine.” 

Rudy nodded quickly. “Upgraded. No offense Dorian, but you’ve got so much hardware maintaining your human look that it’s hard to pack much more in. Alex is a bit more—” He coughed. “Plug and play.”

Alex glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, or rather, the equivalent considering he was looking straight forward at a monitor. “Thanks, Rudy.” Rudy ducked his head and nodded, smiling. Alex couldn’t quite tell if he had detected the sarcasm or not.

He faced forward. “Wait here.”

“Now hand on a secon—” John started, but Alex started forward quickly.

“I’ll be right back, Detective Kennex,” he said.

Maybe it was unnecessary, and he wasn’t in the greatest of shape, but he hadn’t had any action in fifteen years. Maybe something would explode.

Unfortunately, the security measures weren’t hard to disable. As Alex reached the door, his hand came up. He fired as he opened the door, and the sensor shattered, raining tiny bits of glass and metal onto the floor. Alex opened the door the rest of the way, reached up as he stepped inside, and ripped a small ampule of a clear liquid out of a housing on the wall. It fell onto the floor and he crushed it under his foot as he passed.

He was aware that John and Dorian were following at a healthy distance. He sped up a tad, but slowed again when he realized that he felt dizzy. Gritting his teeth, he slowed his breathing, focusing his mind and pushing his emotions aside. He imagined his endorphins dropping, and felt better, as the mechanical parts of his body took over.

There were four security checkpoints, all of them live. Alex destroyed them all without slowing his pace, and without triggering any of them. Nothing shot at him. It was almost disappointing.

Then finally he opened the door at the end of the hallway, and stopped. “Oh…fuck.”

John and Dorian caught up, and John added his own curse words to Alex’s succinct assessment of the situation.

The room was gutted. The table had been uprooted and taken away, leaving bare connections protruding from the floor like broken rib bones. The other items in the room had been ransacked, too, though the majority of the equipment was still there. That was probably why they had reactivated the security - to keep it all safe until whoever it was got back.

There was no point in staying here. Alex turned around and started back up the hall. “Detective Kennex, I advise you to call the station and have surveillance put on this building. They’ll return for the rest of the valuable equipment at some later point, and we may be able to learn more.”

“I’m already on it, Alex,” Dorian said, his face lighting up in soft blue patterns. “I’m surprised they managed to haul all this equipment away without tripping our existing surveillance, though. This building is marked by police. They shouldn’t have been able to enter.”

That was weird, but Alex didn’t have the spare thoughts to work on that problem at the moment. Even worse, stepping up the surveillance wouldn’t solve his immediate problem. As he stepped outside, he felt a wave of exhaustion and stumbled down one step. His body froze as he fought to regain his equilibrium, his mind swirling with a sudden panic. If he fell, would he be able to get up?

Suddenly, Dorian was there. The robot insinuated himself under Alex’s arm and supported him with surprising strength. 

A moment later, John was on his other side, hands grabbing for him. He pushed, and grunted. “Jesus, you’re heavy.”

Then Rudy came from behind at a dead run. He half-fell down the stairs, then wheeled around to face Alex with eyes wide. He swung his pack off of his back and dug inside. “How are you feeling, Alex? You doing okay?”

“I’m feeling…” Alex straightened deliberately. “Tired. I think I’d better get back to the lab and rest.”

Rudy nodded. “Yeah, yeah, some rest’ll do you good.” Dorian began helping Alex towards the car, with John hovering protectively over them. 

John and Dorian shared one of those significant looks as they all piled into the car. 

“I need that table,” Alex said softly.

Rudy leaned over, patted his thigh, his eyes filled with concern. “I’ll figure something out, I promise.”


	7. Chapter 7

“Today Congressman Sellers came out publicly, for the first time, in favour of a new amendment to the decades-old ‘robot law’, more formally known as the Dreyfus Act.” 

The newscaster was an attractive blonde with very white teeth, but that wasn’t what had triggered Alex’s automatic searches to bring the video to his attention. He hadn’t expected any of his word searches to come up with anything current, but as he was housebound for the day while Dorian and John were working and Rudy was desperately trying to find schematics for his table or the exact nutrient regime he was supposed to take, and how, he had nothing much to do but trawl the ‘net. Searching for crimes in progress made him antsy, so he had sent out a variety of searches, casting a wide net for information about the city he now found himself in, and trying to get up to speed about how the world had changed since he had been deactivated.

He’d also, on a whim, put out a few google alerts for words like 'OmniCorp', 'Raymond Sellers', and 'Dreyfus Act'. These were pinging now with this newscast from just that day.

He brought up the video, his heart beginning to pound faster in its silicone enclosure. 

It was real. He watched as a man he knew - he _knew_ , and had last seen taking a bullet to the face, fired by his own gun - stepped out of an impressive-looking building and walked up to a podium. The newscaster put a hand to her ear and turned, looking excited, and the camera focused on his face.

“Good afternoon,” Sellers said. “The Dreyfus Act, in its current incarnation, has been in place unchanged for more than a decade. It’s there to keep the people safe, from those who would exploit them. We don’t want military robots, armed with powerful weapons, walking our streets, as if we live in a warzone. And when the latest amendments were put in place, no one wanted _criminals_ harvesting body parts and putting them in robots. We all know the reasons for the anti-cyborg laws. But where are these criminals? Where is this underground cabal of—” He wiggled his hands spookily. “—corpse robbers, stealing dear old grandma’s brain tissue and putting it in some metal body.”

Alex heard a soft _creak_ and carefully disengaged his cybernetic hand from the edge of Rudy’s table before he could bend the metal any further.

“…simply antiquated. A product of fear, and paranoia. Why shouldn’t law-abiding citizens be able to enhance their bodies as much as they wish? Limiting the use of synthetic anatomical enhancements to the ‘medically necessary’ is a product of old-fashioned thinking that we should put behind us. Every one of us interacts with robots every day. We have nothing to fear from them, and nothing to fear from companies who wish to use our abundant technology to enhance our lives in a safe manner.”

“And there you have it,” the blonde woman said, turning back to the camera and flashing her very-white teeth. “Congressman Sellers taking a bold stance in favour of an amendment to the Dreyfus Act which was introduced in Congress this week. It’s anticipated that the amendment will pass with a strong majority. And back to you, Bob.”

Alex found himself on his feet, visor down. He took a step, and his foot hit a rolling tray. Instruments rained down with a crash, and he stumbled, crushing a tool under his foot.

Rudy nearly overturned his chair as he got up and hurried towards him. “Woaaaah, woah, what are you doing? I really think you should sit down, Alex.”

“Sellers,” Alex said, taking another two steps. Half of his visual field was taken up by CCTV scans, facial recognition and pattern matches, searching for Sellers. “He’s alive. I have to—” He struck a column and rebounded off of it, wondering detachedly why he hadn’t noticed it right in front of him. 

He adjusted his course and headed for the door. 

“Stop!” Rudy was hanging onto his arm, his feet practically dragging on the floor as Alex continued his inexorable march forward. “You are in no condition to be going on some kind of mission right now.”

“I carried out his sentence already,” Alex said, his mind reeling with confusion. How was this possible? “Attempted murder of a police officer. I executed him.”

“Right, right,” Rudy babbled. “I’m sure you did. So you should really just come back, and sit down on the table, and wait until I solve this problem, and then you can go kill that guy you killed, okay?”

“Not okay,” Alex said.

Sunlight bathed his suit as he stepped outside. Rudy was still hanging on futilely, gripping him with both arms and tugging helplessly backwards. He dug in his heels, and Alex simply continued walking, the weight nothing but a mere annoyance.

As Alex hit the street and began to speed up, he became aware of cars going by, people moving quickly aside to get out of his way. Many of them held up phones, mouths open in shock. Rudy bawled pleas to stop, interspersed with commands to do the same, but Alex had found Sellers.

He was quite a distance away. Alex turned to the side and stepped into the street. 

“Oh my god!” Rudy screamed as a car bore down on them. 

Alex held up a hand and waited. The vehicle screeched to a stop inches from him. “I am commandeering this vehicle on behalf of the—” He paused. He wasn’t part of any particular police organization right now. “I am commandeering this vehicle,” he said again, firmly.

“No you aren’t!” Rudy yelled. “You’re going back to the lab.”

“I can’t do that, Rudy,” Alex said, and stepped over to the driver’s seat.

Or at least, he would have. He took a step, and for some reason, froze that way. His mind was a whirl, a jumble. What was he doing? Where was he going?

The ground rushed up to meet him, and then everything went to static.


	8. Chapter 8

John and Dorian arrived at the lab half an hour after the videos went viral. It took only ten minutes to get here from the precinct, but the time immediately prior to getting in the car to head over from the precinct had been extremely uncomfortable for both of them.

There were two videos. One was of earlier that day, a man apparently in a cybernetic suit attempting to take a vehicle and then falling over after some kind of malfunction. The other was of the same man, accompanied by John, Dorian, and Rudy, breaching a police line and entering a derelict building. The second video, though taken earlier in the day, had probably not seemed all that significant until the first one started really making the rounds of the ‘net.

Maldonado had wanted to know what the fuck they had been doing back at that building without authorization, and who the guy in the synthetic suit was. John hated not telling her, especially since she had the ability - and the willingness - to make his life hell. 

“I’m sorry, Captain,” he’d said, his eyes darting around, falling on Paul, then flicking to Stahl, then back up to Maldonado. Couldn’t she at least have reamed him out in her office instead of in front of everyone? “Look, I’ll tell you everything, I promise. It’s just…complicated, okay?”

“Not okay,” she’d snapped. “You’re gallivanting around in public with illegal tech. How do you think this is going to look?”

 _Really, really bad if he kills someone on camera, rather than dying on it,_ John thought. “I’m handling it, Captain. Please, just let me go and deal with this, and then I promise a full report.”

“You mean like the report you filed about this in the first place?” she hissed. “The one that conveniently left _out_ the existence of an unregistered and _illegal_ cyborg in the city?”

John desperately tried to shush her, but sagged as she finished her sentence. “Better than that one,” he grumbled, hunching under her censorious glare. 

“Captain,” Dorian spoke up, very hesitantly. The robot almost cringed as the full force of her gaze turned on him. “The individual in question is a police detective from Detroit named Alex Murphy.” Paul started cursing in the background, and John wheeled around to stare at him, as Dorian continued. “He’s a private citizen, but his status is somewhat uncertain in the current political climate. We were just trying to help him.”

Richard Paul stomped up to them. “Did he say Alex Murphy?” he asked, jabbing a finger at Dorian.

John braced himself, and glared. “That’s what he said, Paul. Got a problem?”

Paul stared at him for a few moments. “Just wondering what you’re still doing here, Kennex,” he growled, turning away. “That guy is a hero.”

Maldonado looked at them, lips pursed. “You’re dealing with this?” 

John nodded.

“Then _deal with it_.” She turned around and headed into her office. John watched her go straight to her terminal and sit down, beginning to type. Searching for information on Alex Murphy, he’d bet. 

They booked it over to Rudy’s. When they walked into the lab, it was to find Murphy on the table, and Rudy was on his computer, typing furiously. Dorian walked straight over to Murphy and leaned over him with concern, while John walked up more slowly. He was probably superfluous to the cause of helping Alex out, but he wasn’t going to be idle.

“What the hell happened, Rudy?” he barked, and Rudy nearly jumped straight out of his skin.

Rudy wheeled around, holding his chest. “Woah… I didn’t hear you guys come in. What are you doing here?”

“Rudy, videos of Alex running down the street and then collapsing have gone viral on the ‘net,” Dorian said. “You didn’t know?”

Rudy gestured frantically at the screen of his computer. “Are you kidding me? The past two hours have been hell. Do you know how heavy he is?” He gestured at Alex. “It took me forever to get a trolley, and then I had to pay four guys to help me get him up on the trolley, then get him back here. And I’ve been trying to figure out what to do about his condition. I haven’t exactly had time to check my social media.”

John examined Alex for the first time. To his surprise, his eyes were open, and looking around, but he wasn’t moving. Dorian leaned over him. “How do you feel, Alex?”

“I feel fine, Detective,” Alex said in a flat, unemotional voice.

John stared at Rudy, who was chewing guiltily on his thumbnail. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Blood poisoning,” Rudy said. “And malnutrition, and probably a dozen other things - I don’t _know_!” He wailed the last bit. “And as soon as he woke up, he wanted to go after Congressman Sellers again, but I didn’t want to sedate him. I don’t know the right dosage, and I’m afraid if I knock him out, he won’t wake up again. But his equipment comes with an endorphin leveller. I was able to lower his endorphins until he stopped…you know, _caring_ so much.”

Dorian looked up at Rudy, eyebrows pinched. 

“It’s only until we figure out what to do!” Rudy exclaimed. “I didn’t want to do it! But I can’t stop him from leaving if he wants to bad enough, and he might die if he moves too much.”

Not saying a word, Dorian quietly took Alex’s hand and squeezed it.

“This is the most fucked up shit I have ever seen,” John said. “Stop wasting time, Rudy. Solve this.”

Rudy’s eyes widened, and he turned and threw himself back into the chair. “Right, right.”

At that moment, a video call came through, buzzing in Rudy’s pocket. He hesitated, flicked his eyes at Dorian and John, then reluctantly answered it, holding the phone up to look at the screen without actually turning his gaze away from the searches he was doing on the computer. “Yeah?”

John craned his neck. “Rudy is now the time to take a call?”

A grey-haired man in thick glasses leaned close, his eyes intent. “Rudy Lom? My name is Doctor Dennett Norton. I saw the videos. Do you still have Alex Murphy?”

In his surprise, Rudy fumbled the phone and almost dropped it. Making an impatient noise, John snatched it out of his hands and brought it up in front of his own eyes. “What’s it to you?”

The doctor’s eyes widened. “I’m the one who performed the surgery, invented the technology. I had no idea what happened to him, or even that he was still alive, until today. But I’m guessing based on what I saw that he needs my help.” His eyes narrowed. “What are you doing to him?”

John scowled. “Nothing. We’re trying to help him.”

“Then give the phone back to Mr. Lom, and follow my instructions.”


	9. Chapter 9

When Alex woke up, Doctor Norton’s face was floating in front of him. Finally, something familiar. 

He smiled. “Hello, doctor.”

“Hello, Alex. How are you feeling?”

He felt around in his head, wiggled his fingers. He didn’t have toes, but he wiggled those, too. Phantom limb syndrome really was a real thing. “Better,” he decided.

“Good, I’m really glad to hear that. It was touch and go there, for a while.” Doctor Norton flickered once, and Alex realized abruptly that he was looking at a hologram, not the real man. He also looked much older, grey-haired, and the lines around his mouth as he smiled were deep chasms. It was startling to see him looking so different, and yet so very familiar.

“Where are you?” Alex asked. He was still sorting out what had happened in the last twenty-four hours. Or had it been longer? Had he thought that Sellers was alive? That was preposterous. Even at the thought, searches began to run in the background.

“I’m in Sweden, at my lab,” Norton said. “I saw the videos of you when they went viral on the ‘net, and I contacted Mr. Lom to try to help you.

“It was a real godsend, too!” Rudy suddenly intruded on the conversation, his thin face looming over Alex and breaking Doctor Norton’s face apart. It reformed, flickering, and Rudy backed off, wringing his hands. “Your blood toxicity levels were through the roof, and I didn’t know the right nutritional and hormonal mixtures to make your body work properly. But now we’ve got it all worked out, lickety-split, right doctor?” He beamed at Norton, who smiled back kindly.

“Mr. Lom did very well keeping you alive as long as he did. He’s a brilliant scientist in his own right,” he said. 

Rudy blushed to the roots of his hair. “Shucks. Well, I certainly couldn’t have done half of what you accomplished with your work, doctor.”

Alex sat up. He felt good. Normal. Not blissed out or dizzy or under any kind of fog. He had a vague memory of his endorphin levels being lowered, and as the search results began to pop up, he began to realize why. Rudy was watching him like a hornet’s nest, his hand on the keyboard of his computer.

“How long was I out?” he asked, trying to ignore the data demanding his attention.

“Twelve hours,” Norton said. “Do you remember what you were doing before you passed out?”

Alex glanced at Norton, then away. “Going after Sellers.”

Rudy made a soft noise, then swallowed hard. “Why?” he asked, the words coming out of him like a little explosion, as if he’d been holding them back through sheer force of will for ages.

It was Norton who replied first. “Michael Sellers ran the old OmniCorp, the company that funded my research and created the RoboCop brand originally. When they tried to shut Alex down, he uh…”

“He tried to kill me,” Alex said firmly. “And I killed him, first.”

Rudy paled. “Oh.”

Alex looked at Norton. “My searches are finding current hits on Sellers. What is happening?”

“It’s not the same guy, Alex,” Norton said soothingly. 

“He _is_.” Alex clenched his hands into fists. “Facial recognition confirms it.”

“And does he look fifteen years older than the Sellers you remember?”

Alex paused, and ran the algorithms again. “No. If anything, he looks younger. Maybe five years.”

“So… he’s a brother?” Rudy asked. “Or a cousin? An uncanny resemblance?”

“Really uncanny,” Alex murmured. He lowered his head, realizing his total idiocy. How could it be Sellers? If Sellers were somehow alive, he’d have aged just like Doctor Norton had. “It _can’t_ be the same man.”

Norton and Rudy visibly relaxed, and that made Alex feel bad. Who was he to be going off half-cocked like that? He was a cop, not a vigilante. He could only blame it on his blood toxicity, and now he knew, even if this _had_ been the same Sellers, that he had no right to go after him right now. 

He looked up. “Sorry, Rudy. I shouldn’t have run off after him like that.”

“Oh, no problem,” Rudy was quick to reassure him. “Totally no problem. It was sort of like riding the mechanical bull ride at the fairway. I love that!”

Alex almost laughed, but at that moment Dorian stepped through the door. He strode in with a quick step, his pace long and rushed, and scanned the room thoroughly before his eyes landed on Alex. “Detective Murphy, what a relief to see you looking well again.”

“Thanks, Dorian,” Alex said, offering him a smile. His organic hand tingled a little with remembered sensation, and he curled it into a fist. He couldn’t quite pin down why he felt warmed just by the sight of the android in a way that even Norton’s familiar and comforting presence couldn’t match. Something to think about later. 

Dorian didn’t smile. “Have either of you seen John?”

Rudy’s eyebrows rose. “Not since yesterday. Why?”

Dorian pursed his lips. “After Doctor Norton contacted you, we returned to our patrol. We completed our shift, and John delivered me here for the night and returned home. This morning he didn’t show up to take me to the station. I attempted to contact him, but he isn’t answering his phone. I’ve investigated all of his usual haunts, including the memory retrieval place that he believes I don’t know about. His locater beacon is off.”

“Kennex has turned his locater off before, Dorian,” Rudy said, though his mouth pulled down. “Maybe he’s got a place he goes that you don’t know about.”

Dorian shook his head. “That is possible, but unlikely. Though he is known for his tendency to be cavalier with time, this is excessive, even for him. Given the depth of my concern by this point, I felt justified in breaking into his apartment. His bed has not been slept in, either, and there were faint signs of a struggle at his apartment, though someone has taken extreme care to cover them up.”

Alex got to his feet. “Are you saying he’s been kidnapped?”

Dorian looked up at Alex, and nodded. “Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying.”


End file.
